Friday, 2 June 2023 - Seasonal Climate Summary for Remote Islands and Antarctica - Product code IDCKGC2RR0

Remote Islands and Antarctica in autumn 2023

Jump to a map of the areas covered in this summary

Australia's Indian Ocean islands

  • Autumn was drier than average for Christmas Island Aero, it had a seasonal rainfall total of 338.8 mm, 47% below average.
  • Christmas Island Aero recorded 338.8 mm total rainfall during autumn, its lowest total autumn rainfall for at least 20 years, compared to the long-term average for autumn of 714.3 mm.
  • At Christmas Island Aero, the mean maximum temperature was 0.3 °C above average, while the mean minimum temperature was close to average at 0.1 °C.
  • At Cocos Island Aero total autumn rainfall was close to average at 567.8 mm.
  • At Cocos Island Aero both mean maximum and mean minimum temperatures were close to average for autumn.

Australia's Pacific Ocean islands

  • Autumn rainfall at Norfolk Island was close to average, recording a total of 318.2 mm. Nothing that there were missing rainfall observations in May and the autumn rainfall total could be higher.
  • Lord Howe Island experienced equipment issues on many days during April. As a result the autumn rainfall total is not known.
  • At Norfolk Island Aero, both mean maximum and mean minimum temperatures were 0.5 °C above average for autumn.

Australia's Antarctic and sub-Antarctic territories

  • The strongest wind gust during Autumn was 178 km/h at Casey on 25 and 27 May.
  • Casey had its lowest total autumn rainfall on record since 2000, with 24 mm recorded in autumn. The average total rainfall for autumn is 60.4 mm.
  • Both mean maximum and mean minimum temperatures were within 1 °C above average Australian Antarctic sites.
  • Autumn rainfall at Macquarie Island was wetter than average, the total rainfall for autumn is 341.7 mm.
  • Macquarie Island had its highest autumn daily rainfall on record, 53.5 mm on 1 April. The previous record was 52.8 mm in 2001.
  • Both mean maximum and minimum temperature were 0.5 °C above average at Macquarie Island.
  • The strongest wind gust recorded this autumn at Macquarie Island was 130 km/h on 22 May.

Records Summaries Important notes the top

Record highest autumn daily precipitation
New record
(mm)		 Old
record		 Years of
record
Macquarie Island 53.5 on 1 Apr 52.8 on 14 Mar 2001 76


Record lowest autumn total precipitation
New record
(mm)		 Old
record		 Years of
record		 Average for
autumn
Casey 24.0 26.0 in 2000 22 60.4

Lowest autumn total precipitation for at least 20 years
Observed
(mm)		 Most recent
lower		 Average for
autumn
Christmas Island Aero 338.8 245.6 in 1997 714.3


Records Summaries Important notes the top

Summary statistics for autumn 2023
Maximum temperatures
(°C)		 Minimum temperatures
(°C)		 Precipitation
(millimetres)
Mean for
autumn
2023		 Diff
from
average		 Highest for
autumn
2023		 Mean for
autumn
2023		 Diff
from
average		 Lowest for
autumn
2023		 Total for
autumn
2023		 Average
for
autumn		 Rank of
autumn
2023		 Fraction of
autumn
average
Offshore Islands (district 200)
Christmas Island Aero 28.5 +0.3 29.9 28 Mar 23.6 +0.1 20.6 8 Mar 338.8 714.3 v low 47%
Cocos Island Airport 29.8 +0.1 32.0 8 May 25.4 +0.2 22.9 10 Mar 587.8 673.9 average 87%
Norfolk Island Aero 23.2 +0.5 27.3 17 Mar 18.3 +0.5 14.1 26 May 318.2 356.5 average 89%
Antarctica and Macquarie Island (district 300)
Casey -6.7 +0.8 3.5 10 Mar -13.3 +1.0 -26.7 12 May 24.0 60.4 lowest 40%
Davis -9.4 +0.1 1.5 10 Mar -15.0 +0.3 -29.5 26 May 12.6 28.8 low 44%
Macquarie Island 7.5 +0.5 10.5 6 Mar 4.2 +0.5 0.0 6 Apr 341.7 284.3 high 120%
Mawson -9.9 +0.9 0.4 9 Mar -15.6 +1.1 -27.6 13 May
Note: Precipitation values from Casey and Davis should be used with caution.

Records Summaries Important notes the top

Map of the areas covered by this summary

Notes

The Seasonal climate summary, generally published on the first working day of each month, lists the main features of the weather in Remote Islands and Antarctica using the most timely and accurate information available on the date of publication; it will generally not be updated. More extensive discussion of significant weather events, along with later information and data that has had greater opportunity for quality control, will be presented in the Monthly Weather Review.

This statement has been prepared based on information available at 1 pm on Friday 2 June 2023. Some checks have been made on the data, but it is possible that results will change as new information becomes available.

In some situations, some or all of the precipitation is in the form of hail or snow. In these cases the totals given are for the water equivalent: the depth of liquid water that results from melting any frozen precipitation. There can be significant 'undercatch' of snow in strong winds, meaning the true precipitation can be higher than that reported.

Averages for individual sites are long-term means based on observations from all available years of record, which vary widely from site to site. They are not shown for sites with less than 10 years of record, as they cannot then be calculated reliably.
The median is sometimes more representative than the mean of long-term average precipitation.

The Rank indicates how precipitation this time compares with the climate record for the site, based on the decile ranking (very low precipitation is in decile 1, low in decile 2 or 3, average in decile 4 to 7, high in decile 8 or 9 and very high is in decile 10).
The Fraction of average shows how much precipitation has fallen this time as a percentage of the long-term mean.

Where temperature area averages are mentioned, they are derived from the ACORN-SAT dataset.

Further information

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